


My Love is Writ Upon Your Skin

by the_moonmoth



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Blow Jobs, Body Worship, Crowley's Hair (Good Omens), Crowley's Tongue (Good Omens), First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, Hand & Finger Kink, Hands, Hugs, Inexperienced Aziraphale (Good Omens), Light Bondage, Love Confessions, M/M, Mild Kink, Porn with Feelings, Rimming, Safewords, Sexual Inexperience, Touch-Starved, Touch-Starved Aziraphale (Good Omens), Virgin Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-08-20 11:16:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20226952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_moonmoth/pseuds/the_moonmoth
Summary: “Angels don’t… we don’t touch, Crowley. Ever. I mean, you went to Heaven this morning, you saw what it’s like these days.”These days, Crowley thought. Right. It hadn’t always been like that. His memory wasn’t clear, and certainly lacking something for being terminally cut off from God, but he didn’t remember it being so very cold.“What are you saying?” he asked.“It’s not that I didn’t like it, I swear, it’s just… so much.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started off as a little side project to work on when I needed a break from other, longer fic, and then it grew legs of its own. Of course. I have never actually read any Thoreau, I just happen to live near Walden Pond. The premise was originally inspired by some tumblr meta about how the austere trappings of heaven have probably left poor Aziraphale rather touch-starved -- I can't find the post anymore but if you know what I'm talking about please hit me up with the link (ETA [found it!](https://themoonmothwrites.tumblr.com/post/186274270868/broke-crowley-is-touch-starved-bc-demons-and-hell))
> 
> You can [find me here on tumblr](https://themoonmothwrites.tumblr.com/) \- come say hi :)

**My Love Is Writ Upon Your Skin**

Aziraphale's left hand was extremely interesting. Not that all of him wasn't interesting (Crowley had always thought so, which was a big part of the reason they were here at all, really) but somehow, over the last several hours, all of Crowley's generalised interest seemed to have distilled down into this one small piece of him that hung temptingly a few inches away.

It was a nice hand, really. Broad and sure, but neat. Aesthetically pleasing. The skin looked soft and inviting, a sparse scattering of golden hair, perfect for sliding your fingers along and slowly caressing the knuckles. If you had a mind to. Crowley most definitely did. For several thousand years now.

After the end of the world -- after their trials, and the Ritz, and hours spent eating and drinking, talking and smiling -- of course after that Aziraphale wanted to see his bookshop. That was why they were currently walking together under street lights and starless city skies to where the Bentley was parked (illegally, naturally) still talking about this and that, and Crowley couldn’t help it, he kept glancing down at Aziraphale’s left hand. 

Normally, when the angel walked, he would hold his hands laced primly in front of him, or behind his back; sometimes he would twist his fingers in unconscious anxiety or guilt; he occasionally gesticulated when he got a bit excited. He never, not that Crowley could remember, just let his arms hang loosely by his sides. Did it mean something? Probably just that Aziraphale was at least one sheet to the wind after a solid two bottles of champagne. But Crowley couldn’t help but wonder if it was an invitation, of sorts. Aziraphale was nothing if not coy when it came to that kind of thing, and Crowley was helpless to do anything but meet him where he was. He usually got slightly more of a clue than this, though. 

His own fingers twitched with a narrowly aborted move to take the possibly-offered hand, touch the palm with his fingertips and stroke down it gently until fingers could slide between fingers. But no, the day had gone blessed near perfectly, and Crowley would be fucked before he messed it up with his unwanted, too-fast overtures.

Of course, that was when their hands brushed quite by accident, the smooth, brief drag of Aziraphale’s fingers against the back of Crowley’s hand, and Aziraphale, who had been deep in a comparison of modern performances of The Four Seasons with the way Vivaldi himself had played it, stopped mid-sentence with an audible gasp, before blushing deeply.

That was… Well, that was very…

Crowley was just talking himself up to trying it again, when Aziraphale took a shaky breath and very definitely withdrew. Literally, took a step to the side so that the small, warm space between them filled with cool night air, and Crowley tried desperately not to show his ragged, beating heart on his sleeve.

And that seemed to be that. The conversation hardly even faltered, just another little knock at the gate of Fortress Aziraphale, gently rebuffed, and Crowley was so used to it by now he barely even noticed the hurt. They were alive, and together, and they’d saved the world so that that state of affairs could continue indefinitely, and honestly, Crowley was fine if that was as far as it ever went. He was _ fine_. Aziraphale was his best friend before anything else, and having already lost him once just the day before, Crowley was beyond happy for the chance to sit by his side and make toasts and know that there was nothing to fear from their respective higher-ups (or lower-downs, as the case may be). Aziraphale loved him in every way that counted, Crowley knew that, even if he sometimes struggled to remind himself, for lack of hearing it out loud. If there was some other way that he wanted that love, well, that was on him, and _ he was fine with that. _

He managed to keep reminding himself right up until they got to the Bentley, and Aziraphale brushed Crowley’s hand as he stood holding the door for him. It was such a casual movement, Aziraphale’s hand apparently swinging up thoughtlessly to touch -- or possibly even _ pat? _ \-- Crowley’s hand where it rested on top of the Bentley’s passenger door. His fingers were there, on top of Crowley’s, and then a second later, they were sliding off again, and had that been a _ caress_? It was such a tiny thing to stand about gaping over, and yet there he was, mouth working soundlessly in a cross between indecision and outrage. Because Aziraphale _ didn’t _ touch casually. He’d barely ever touched Crowley in all the millennia they’d been hanging around each other -- Crowley had expected the hand on his arm at Tadfield Manor to be it for the next century, at least -- and Crowley, seeing early on that Aziraphale jumped and twitched and was generally uncomfortable with physical contact, had learned to keep just enough of a distance to save them both the upset. So even though it had looked casual enough, and really, Aziraphale had pulled it off quite well, the possibility that it actually had been just _ one of those things _ was vanishingly small. Which brought him circling back round to _ did it mean something? _Was Aziraphale blushing again, or was it just that the first blush hadn’t receded yet? Had his breath really hitched, or had Crowley somehow misheard?

“Something wrong?” Aziraphale asked innocently, looking up from the passenger seat with those huge eyes, sparkling with the reflected light of the sodium lamps and the general good mood of the day, and Crowley couldn’t help a pained little sound of victimisation escaping him.

“No,” he said with strained sarcasm, “nothing wrong here, everything’s fine, absolutely _ spiffing_.”

“Oh, good,” Aziraphale said, beaming at him in that way that was so blessed bright it made him glad of the sunglasses, even after dark. “Shall we get on? Time waits for no small business owner.”

***

The small business in question looked just as it always had, from the outside. That was, just as it always had until yesterday, when Crowley had come racing over here only find it on fire and Aziraphale gone. He stood a moment on the street, heedless of a Ford Ka aggressively waiting for him to move, head swimming and heart pounding. Losing patience with his trip down nightmare lane, the Ford pipped at him. Jolted roughly back to the present, Crowley flipped the Ford off before sauntering as slowly as he could manage over to the front door. 

Aziraphale had hared inside the moment Crowley had cut the Bentley’s engine, and was now looking excitedly over the shop, practically bouncing with excitement, as Crowley slithered in after him.

“Oh, isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it just perfect, Crowley?”

“It looks the same,” Crowley said.

“Yes, that’s what I mean,” Aziraphale said, turning that bright gaze on him long enough to leave him sizzling gently inside before casting it around the shop once more. “Oh my, it’s just as I left it. Well, not exactly,” he bent to examine the collection of Just Williams on the writing desk, “but close enough. And really, these look like, ah yes, first editions. Quite valuable, I should think. Quite collectible.”

Part of Crowley wanted to stop him, wanted to catch his hand in his own and ask, _ what was all that about, back there? _Wanted to pull him close and breathe him in, chase away the scent of smoke and see if his cheeks would turn pink again just from Crowley’s nearness. Instead, he slipped his hands into his pockets and watched Aziraphale buzz around his shop, running his hands over book spines and piles of papers, and tried not to fixate on the sensuous trail of his manicured fingers.

The situation, as many before, called for alcohol. Luckily, that part of the bookshop’s collection was fully untouched.

***

“Oh no,” Aziraphale’s voice floated over the bookshelves some time later. They were well into their second bottle of rioja, but Crowley had been doing the heavy lifting (of wine bottles, ha) in terms of actually drinking, and was draped across the couch, sunglasses tossed carelessly onto the coffee table, feeling pretty mellow and happy again. Really, what could be better than relaxing in his favourite recently-reconstituted place with his favourite recently-recorporated person and an excellent bottle of red? His chest had even stopped seizing up every couple of minutes at the imagined crackle of burning paper. 

But-- “What?” he called back, trying to work out if the level of distress indicated in Aziraphale’s tone required him to actually get up.

“My signed Thoreaus. They’ve been replaced by, by _ cowboy _ books.”

Crowley snorted. The Antichrist kid was possibly smarter than any of them had realised. What possible interest could Aziraphale -- an angel of appetites, home comforts, and an at least monthly desire to go to the theatre -- have in the isolationist ramblings of a man who voluntarily lived in a tiny wooden shack by a lake?

“If you ask me, Thoreau was a joyless wanker,” he told Aziraphale. “If you’ve got to have something from America, might as well be cowboys.”

Aziraphale re-emerged from the stacks, and gave Crowley a tart look as he finally came back to the sitting area. “Sometimes, one simply enjoys collecting things.”

“Gosh, really?” Crowley mocked, gesturing expansively around the teetering piles and groaning shelves of the bookshop, miraculously not spilling any of his wine in the act. Aziraphale’s expression got even dirtier. Crowley grinned unrepentantly, going hot inside. “Oh come on, don’t look at me like that. At least now you’ve got something new to read.”

“It isn’t the same,” Aziraphale pouted, reaching for the wine bottle with a muttered, “_Children’s literature!” _He poured for himself and took a sip that half-drained the glass. “There was a reason you were young Warlock’s nanny, you know.”

“I look ravishing in a pencil skirt?”

Aziraphale cleared his throat. "Well, yes," he admitted, much to Crowley's shock. "That goes without saying. But more to the point, you have a great deal more patience than I do. For, you know." Crowley raised his eyebrows. Aziraphale made a searching gesture. "Sticky fingers," he eventually said with great feeling. "Grubby faces." He shuddered. "_Bent pages. _I couldn't have."

"Well," said Crowley, who was rethinking his decision to wear trousers the last six years, and completely ignoring the angel's nerve in implying he was in any way _ nice_. "Big of you to admit it."

Aziraphale shot him a smile that was so unexpectedly impish that Crowley might've fallen over if he wasn't already mostly lying down. "It's not like anyone's keeping score anymore. You know--" he pointed tentatively at the ceiling. "_Up there. _ Seems like the perfect opportunity to be more oneself.” His expression gently slid into something more serious. “Make… admissions."

Odd, but that had almost sounded like a question. Crowley sat up, tense and frowning, trying to simultaneously parse what was being said through the alcohol haze, and resist the urge to shake the angel while begging him to spit it out. Because it seemed like he wanted Crowley to provide some kind of opening, but he’d done that already -- _ twice _ \-- and gotten it so blessed wrong it had, briefly, broken him. 

"Seems to me," he said carefully, acutely aware that he should have sobered up five minutes ago, or at the very least before opening his mouth. "Seems to me that, uhhh…" Normally he was weak enough for Aziraphale’s charms that he would do whatever the angel wanted, more or less happy for that to be his role, but this time he couldn't, he _ couldn't, _he'd get it wrong again, lose everything again. Sudden panic floored him. "That I should go. 'S getting late, wouldn't want to inconvenience…"

_ Fuck, what are you doing? _ he thought hysterically at himself as he dived for the hatstand, nearly pulling it over in his haste to retrieve his coat. _ Bloody coward. _

"Crowley, wait!"

Aziraphale's face slid blurrily across his field of vision, looking worried and confused, as Crowley fought wildly with the hatstand for a moment, which seemed to have developed an intimate relationship with his coat and was refusing to give it up. Defeated, Crowley grabbed the stem of the infernal thing to steady it before gravity could get in on the act for a threesome, and took a couple of deep breaths to steady himself into the bargain. He'd never been any good at keeping his feelings safe inside, either -- he glanced warily to the side -- especially when Aziraphale was looking at him like that.

"Don't go," Aziraphale said quietly. And his hands, his _ hands,_ held in front of his body as they so often were, but one of them further forward than the other, fingers uncurled. It was almost as if he had been reaching out, and was now faintly embarrassed to have been caught in the act, looking as though any second he would let it would curl back in and join the other.

_ No, _ Crowley thought painfully. _ Reach out. Reach out to me. _

Releasing the hatstand to its fate, he spun back to face Aziraphale, arms flung out helplessly at his sides. “If I stay, I’m going to…” his voice cracked away to nothing, making even the mild threat sound nothing but desperate.

“What?” Aziraphale prompted quietly.

“I couldn’t find you,” Crowley whispered back. “The shop was on fire, and you were gone.”

“You came _ in?_” Aziraphale said, soft and shocked.

Crowley stared at him. Even if he’d been wearing his sunglasses, he’d have looked over the top of them for this. “Of _ course _ I did.”

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured, and Crowley was transfixed once more by those indecisive hands, fluttering about as though trying to find a way through to him, and a breath, like that, six thousand years, it wasn’t enough.

In three long strides he had covered the distance between them, unsure himself what he meant to do until he was there, a hands-breadth away from Aziraphale. 

“I’m going to hug you now.” His voice wavered alarmingly. “That okay, angel?”

Aziraphale’s hands fell to his sides in shock. “Y-yes, I suppo--” he spluttered, going charmingly pink once more, voice disappearing as Crowley stepped in closer still, until he could feel the warmth rising from Aziraphale’s body, until he could feel Aziraphale’s body, and brought his arms around Aziraphale’s shoulders, his cheek just barely brushing Aziraphale’s cheek, and closed his eyes and held on as carefully as he knew how. And those butterfly hands, no longer able to beat their soft anxieties against each other, found tentative purchase against Crowley’s ribs, a tickle of uncertain movement along the seam of his henley, before they flattened and smoothed, and burned him with their hesitant warmth.

“I won’t break,” Crowley murmured hoarsely, an instruction to himself as much as a promise to Aziraphale, and Aziraphale let out a breath that teased hotly on the shell of his ear, and edged his fingers around an inch or so in the direction of Crowley’s back. It was permission enough. Crowley tightened the embrace, leaving _ careful _behind, flattening his body against Aziraphale’s solid heat and burying his nose in the stretch of skin between ear and collar, breathing him in with deep, needful inhales, clinging pitifully, gratefully, urgently.

The world seemed to slow in glossy-thick and pleasant globs, like honey dripping from a comb: just as sweet; just as golden. _ This, _ Crowley thought, in a dazed and happy stupor, _ this this this_, and thoughtlessly parted his lips against Aziraphale’s neck, let the tip of his tongue rest calmly against the smooth skin, breathing, tasting, feeling, all his senses turned with intense, joyful focus on experiencing this moment. It was possibly that, or the fact that he never had gotten around to sobering up, that explained how he'd missed Aziraphale’s jerky, panting breaths, or the way his fingers curled into a desperate clutch in Crowley’s t-shirt, but slowly, his own tightly experienced sense of peace expanded just enough to take in Aziraphale’s taut and trembling body, his air of restless discomfort.

Nosing dreamily up Aziraphale’s neck to his ear, Crowley touched his tongue there too, before asking, “What’s wrong?”

His words were lost in the loud gasp Aziraphale let out. The golden bubble popped and Crowley leaned back just enough to look at Aziraphale’s face.

“Angel?”

For a long, summer-hot moment, the look Aziraphale gave Crowley was almost drugged: eyes dark and heavy, colour high, mouth parted as though, as though… Crowley licked his lips, drawn in by strange gravity, and it was at this moment that Aziraphale shuddered all over and took a step back. Just like he had earlier as they were walking for the Bentley.

“I, I think you should go,” Aziraphale said. Crowley had never heard him sound like that before. He sounded _ wrecked_. Aziraphale’s retreat had been halted after just a couple of steps by the back of the sofa, and Crowley watched his fingers clamp around it now as though it were holding him up.

“All right,” he said gently, sensing he was on dangerous ground, but-- “Why? Did I--?”

“No! God, no,” Aziraphale said hastily, looking a little more reassuringly flustered now. “I just. Have need of. A little privacy.” He coughed embarrassedly and looked away, demure as a renaissance maiden, and Crowley was hopelessly charmed. And then Crowley noticed what he had somehow failed to notice while pressed up against him. It was the alcohol, had to be. Couldn’t possibly be the way he’d been so overwhelmed by Aziraphale’s closeness, the way it had felt to finally hold him in his arms, that he’d lost his head enough to be oblivious to… that. 

_ That _ being the tight pull of Aziraphale’s trousers over his very obvious erection.

Crowley froze. That hadn’t… he hadn’t meant… but Aziraphale had felt…?

“Privacy, right,” he said faintly, but his body felt sticky and slow, resisting the instruction to turn around and leave. Painfully, he made himself do it, turn and walk to the door, but then he was stuck, caught in amber, and could go no further; couldn’t go back. “I’m sorry,” he said, not sure for what. More than one thing, probably. His mind was worryingly blank, but inside, his stomach was quaking.

And into that moment stretched as thin as silk, Aziraphale said, very shakily, “It’s not you.” 

“Aziraphale,” he rasped, “if you say _ it’s me _ I’m going to have to murder you.”

“But it is,” Aziraphale said, a peevish note entering his voice. “Angels don’t… we don’t touch, Crowley. Ever. I mean, you went to Heaven this morning, you saw what it’s like these days.” 

_ These days, _ Crowley thought. Right. It hadn’t always been like that. His memory wasn’t clear, and certainly lacking something for being terminally cut off from God, but he didn’t remember it being so very cold.

“What are you saying?” he asked.

Behind him, it sounded as though Aziraphale had taken a couple of steps towards him. “It’s not that I didn’t like it, I swear, it’s just… so much.” 

Barely, _ barely _ daring to hope, Crowley looked over his shoulder. Aziraphale _ was _ closer, standing amidst all his piles of books and fussy belongings, a small space stuffed to the rafters with comfort and delight -- the absolute opposite of heaven -- and looking more at sea than Crowley had ever seen him. It tugged at him, that damnable impulse to do anything to make Aziraphale feel better.

“I can come back another time,” he offered gently, drifting back towards Aziraphale all the same. “Tomorrow, even. There’s no need to… to go too fast.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, looking terrified but so determined, his brave angel. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t really want you to go.” Step by step he came closer still until he was within arm’s reach, and then his arms did reach, an uncertain hand on Crowley’s shoulder. “I want you to stay. Please stay.” 

“Okay,” Crowley managed. “Okay, angel.”

They had met by one of Aziraphale’s curious, fussy display tables, the funny tiered one that had always put Crowley in mind of a cake stand. Slowly, with infinite care, he took Aziraphale by the waist and steered him round until he was leaning back against the edge of the table, then stepped closer and pressed his lips to Aziraphale’s temple, not quite a kiss, but tender nonetheless. 

“Tell me what you want,” he whispered. “Anything. It’s yours.”

They were standing close, though not as close as earlier. Aziraphale’s hand had slid down a little from his shoulder and was now resting on his chest, fingers twitching restlessly on Crowley’s exposed collarbone, and Crowley’s hands were still on his waist. Leaning back a little Crowley touched his nose to Aziraphale’s, a gentle nuzzle, and Aziraphale trembled.

“If you don’t kiss me this minute I’m quite certain I’ll discorporate.”

“That would be unfortunate,” Crowley said, smiling slightly, and closed the small distance, and put his mouth on Aziraphale’s.

It was a chaste, close-mouthed kiss, Crowley trying to be mindful of Aziraphale’s speed limit, but despite that, the angel groaned low in his throat as though he was being ravaged, and Crowley couldn’t help licking at his lips, seeking entrance. Aziraphale’s mouth parted with a gasp and Crowley tenderly sucked on his lower lip before pushing in, a hot, slow slide. And _ oh_, fuck, there was Aziraphale’s tongue, the first tentative touch turning his knees to water so that he stumbled into him and Aziraphale had to brace his free hand behind them on the table.

“Okay?” Crowley panted. They were pressed together once more and this time Crowley was very, very aware of Aziraphale’s hard cock, and his own painful urge to rut against him until they were both screaming.

“I have a confession,” Aziraphale murmured.

“Oh?”

“When you held me against that wall, in Tadfield? I enjoyed it rather more than I should have.”

“_Oh?” _

“Yes,” Aziraphale said. “I couldn’t stop staring at your mouth.” He was breathing heavily, eyes shiny and dazed, lips flushed from their kissing, and Crowley couldn’t think of a time he’d looked more attractive.

“Is that so?” Crowley said. “My mouth? You have no idea what I want to do to you with it.”

Aziraphale made a strangled sound and reached up to touch Crowley’s lips, one finger pushing oh so tentatively with a look of intensely aroused curiosity. “Nice things?” he asked.

“Oh, angel,” Crowley promised. “Just you wait.” Playfully, he nipped at the tip of Aziraphale’s finger, and at his moan, bit with a little more intention, swirled his tongue, closed his lips and sucked. Aziraphale’s eyes fell closed in a look of pained bliss, forehead falling to Crowley’s shoulder, free hand clenching in his shirt. Crowley bit again, gently, gently, rocking a little against Aziraphale, unable to stop himself, and Aziraphale cried out and jerked, and books fell to the floor, and Crowley realised Aziraphale was coming.

Stunned, horribly in love, Crowley held him close and gentled him through it, and when Aziraphale’s knees finally seemed to want to give up, urged him up to sit on the table. They clung together for a long time, breathing, Aziraphale letting out a shocked little _ oh _ every now and then.

Eventually, he took a deep, shuddering breath, and spoke into Crowley’s neck. “That was… sublime.”

“You’re okay?”

“Mmm.” He nodded. Crowley shivered at the feeling of hot breath on his skin. “I’m quite overwhelmed, but I think I’ll survive it.”

Crowley chuckled, chest brimming with affection. “Can you look at me?”

Aziraphale, pink-cheeked and deliciously rumpled, sat back enough for them to see each other. “I’m not sure,” he said smilingly. “The sight of you like this might send me over a second time.” Tenderly, he cupped Crowley’s cheek in his palm, and Crowley was helpless to do anything else but lean into the touch, still exquisitely aroused.

“Don’t even think of it,” he warned. “Next time I want to actually touch you.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened, going unfocused. “Next time?”

Crowley turned his head to press kisses into his palm, one last little nip to his thumb, before drawing his hand down to hold in his own. “When you’re ready,” he said carefully.

“What if…” Aziraphale swallowed, eyes falling to his mouth again. “What if I’m ready now?”

“Uhhh.” Crowley was rendered insensible for a moment by the tidal wave of relief. “Then maybe we should take this upstairs,” he croaked. He’d never been to the apartment above the bookshop, but he was certain there was one up there. One with a really nice, big bed.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, glancing at the ceiling and then giving Crowley an appreciative look. “Very nice.”

And then Aziraphale flourished the hand that wasn’t held fast in Crowley’s, and the next moment, there they were, in a bedroom newly willed into existence, just for them.

“What now?” Aziraphale asked, part bashful, part eager. Crowley pulled him in, wrapped one arm around his waist, and kissed him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, hope it was worth it ;)

**** Aziraphale’s bedroom was covered in books: shelves that groaned under the weight of precious, leather bound tomes, haphazard stacks of paperbacks pushed off into corners, an antique-looking dresser by the door all but hidden under the drifts. How could it be any other way? Even though Crowley had literally just wished this room into existence, it was still Aziraphale’s. Luckily, though -- miraculously, even -- the large four-poster bed was clear of obstacles. 

All in good time. After six thousand years, Crowley didn’t see the need to rush.

He did, however, see the very urgent need to push Aziraphale up against a hard surface and kiss him senseless, and that was where the posts came in.

“Mmph,” Aziraphale breathed as his back hit the smooth pillar of wood. “You really do have a thing for this, don’t you?”

“You were the one who said you liked it,” Crowley reminded him, zeroing in on Aziraphale’s neck, that spot he had burrowed into earlier before he’d known where this was going.

“Oh, I did,” Aziraphale said, head falling back in pleasure as Crowley kissed from his ear to his collar. “I just never took you for the violent sort.”

Crowley reared back. “I’m not,” he said, frowning.

Aziraphale blinked at him, pink cheeked and alluring. “No, I know. That was a poor choice of words. I-- I meant, um, forcefully passionate. I… ah… may have had some  _ thoughts _ in that direction, over the years.”

“So you’ve mentioned,” Crowley said, allowing himself to untense. He reached for Aziraphale’s bowtie and busied himself with removing it, unfastening the top shirt button and peeling his collar aside to find more skin to kiss.

“Please, please don’t misunderstand me,” Aziraphale said a little shakily, as Crowley sucked on his soft, warm skin. “It’s only that, that the idea of being forced into something I already wanted but wasn’t allowed to have, was… potent.”

“It’s okay, angel, I get it,” Crowley said.

“ _ Oh!”  _ Aziraphale moaned as Crowley found an especially sensitive spot. “Kiss me, darling. Please.”

“With pleasure.”

Kissing Aziraphale was… it was everything good in the world. It was beautiful sunsets and excellent wine and driving 120mph down a deserted country road with one hand dragging the air from the Bentley’s window. It was daytime TV and phones going off in the cinema even though their owners swore they’d put them on silent, and watching some poor bugger struggling with the Times cryptic crossword from across a cafe. It was oysters in Rome and miracles at the Globe and six thousand years of breathless longing.

Crowley pressed their bodies together, pressed Aziraphale back into the bedpost, not seeking comfort and warmth anymore, but something ragged and pulsing and desperately needy, fingers scrabbling at buttons and incoherent noises falling from his mouth. His skin was burning off, Aziraphale’s hands on his face felt cool by comparison.

“My dear, you’re quite… you drank quite a lot downstairs. Do you need to sober up?”

“I really d-- don’t think that’s-- a good idea,” Crowley panted. The alcohol was quite possibly the only thing stopping him from coming in his jeans.

“All the same,” Aziraphale said gently, and Crowley couldn’t refuse him anything, and so was already getting ready to do the deed when Aziraphale added, “I think you might prefer a clear memory of what I’m about to do to you.”

The alcohol left his bloodstream so abruptly he reeled from it, and in that moment, Aziraphale took the opportunity to slide down Crowley’s body until he was on his knees at Crowley’s feet.

“May I?” he asked, reaching for Crowley’s belt buckle, and then it was all a pleasure-laden blur until he blinked and realised his trousers were down around his thighs and the head of his very hard cock was approximately one inch from Aziraphale’s mouth.

“Ffffuck,” he breathed. “Angel, what are you…”

“I want you to, to take my mouth,” Aziraphale said, looking flustered and coy and determined all at once.

“What?” Crowley managed.

“Crowley, please, I want to but I don’t know what I’m doing,” Aziraphale pleaded.

“You… you want me to  _ use _ you?”

“I need you to  _ help _ me.”

Crowley squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, no thought in his head beside the image of coming all over Aziraphale’s face, and the desperate desire not to do that. A moment later, he was able to step back from the brink, and leaning against the bedpost with one hand, he took himself in the other, a loose grip around the base, and guided the head to Aziraphale’s lips. Aziraphale opened for him so sweetly it was like it was the only thing he wanted, warm and wet and _ fuck _ that was his tongue. Helplessly, Crowley released himself and touched Aziraphale’s hair. Aziraphale leaned into it without ever letting go of Crowley’s cock, utterly artless, and Crowley’s heart thumped and his ribs squeezed and all the air went out of his lungs at how blessed  _ beautiful _ Aziraphale was just then.

Time disappeared. Crowley lost himself to the sweet, slightly clumsy rhythm of Aziraphale’s mouth, the silky slide of his hair, the sounds of enjoyment coming from Aziraphale’s throat. _ He sounds like they just brought out the dark chocolate and ginger mousse at the Ritz _ , Crowley thought dazedly.  _ He sounds like he likes this.  _ The idea, the very notion, of being  _ enjoyed  _ like a fine meal was almost enough to send him over, and he grasped desperately at the base of his cock to stave it off, not ready.

“This is what you meant, isn’t it?” Aziraphale said, releasing him with an obscenely wet sound as Crowley tried fruitlessly to catch his breath. “By using your mouth?”

“One… one of the things,” Crowley said weakly. He’d had  _ plans _ , bless it, and Aziraphale was thoroughly derailing them. Then again, if this was how it was going to be, now that they had their freedom -- Aziraphale doing something other than blithely following someone else’s directions -- he really shouldn’t complain. 

When Aziraphale licked him from root to tip before taking him back into his mouth, Crowley knew he definitely wasn’t going to complain. Fuck, if he hadn’t imagined this over and over…

A rustling sound made him realise his eyes had fallen closed. Forcing them open he peered between his arms and saw that Aziraphale, already delightfully rumpled and half-unbuttoned in his shirtsleeves, was unfastening his fly. Crowley groaned when he pulled out his own cock, the sight of it in Aziraphale’s soft, sturdy hand making his mouth water. He began to stroke himself one-handed, the other hand a tender weight at Crowley’s hip, sucking away inexpertly at the head as Crowley thrust and withdrew, and his face… Nnng, Aziraphale’s  _ face _ , his eyes fluttering closed...

His expression… Aziraphale could have been in church, kneeling in between the pews on one of those musty little cushions, hands pressed palms-together and eyes closed as he guilelessly implored the Almighty to bless the poor with fluffy puppies and put more rainbows in the sky. Instead, he was kneeling at Crowley’s feet, getting his mouth fucked with Crowley’s dick. How… how was this… It was filthy, is what it was. Profane, even. It was hotter than hell. Crowley leaned his forehead against the smooth wood of the post and  _ keened _ , a long, pained sound, before his hips lost their rhythm and he started jerking haphazardly through his orgasm. It was violent, and bright, and so good it was akin to pain, and afterwards he stared wide-eyed into nothing for a moment, windswept.

“That wasn’t how this was supposed to go,” he said.

Aziraphale looked up from where he had been murmuring praises and pressing kisses against Crowley’s thigh, still stroking himself with a slow, regular hand. “Oh?”

“I was supposed to be the one touching you. You’ve barely let me.”

“Sorry, my dear,” Aziraphale said, cheeks flushed and eyes twinkling. “I couldn’t help myself.”

“Nng,” Crowley said. “Come here.”

He stepped back and pulled Aziraphale to his feet, holding him at arm’s length to admire the sight of him, untucked, unbuttoned, unzipped, hard cock rising up between the soft blue cotton of his shirt tails. 

He took Aziraphale’s free hand in his own, lacing their fingers together before raising them to his mouth, giving soft, close-mouthed kisses to the pad of each finger, the whorl of each knuckle.

“Look at you,” he said, touching the center of Aziraphale’s chest, warm skin and soft hair beneath his fingertips. “You have no idea…”

Aziraphale reached for him, too, the fingers of his free hand impatient at the hem of Crowley’s henley, skating up Crowley’s ribs as he helped him pull it over his head. 

“I have some idea,” Aziraphale said, still with that damnable twinkle. He let his hands trail back down Crowley’s bare chest, fingers dragging over his nipples, circling his belly button, before coming to rest low on his hips, thumbs stroking over the jut of bone. “You are just as lovely as I’d imagined.”

“No, I--” Crowley started to protest, before his brain caught up with his ears. “Imagined? As you’d imagined? You’ve been imagining?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said earnestly. “For quite some time now. Crowley, you must know…”

Flushing horribly, Crowley bit his lip, giving Aziraphale one last long look to commit the sight to memory, before snapping his fingers. The remainder of both of their clothes disappeared. Aziraphale looked as though he was about to start complaining, but before he could put voice to it, his hands were pulled firmly backwards and secured behind the bedpost. His undignified squeaking noise made Crowley grin.

“Is this all right?” he asked. “Thought we could try something with some... potency.”

Aziraphale tested the new bonds holding his wrists in place. Crowley had made them out of the softest of soft velvet, but it wasn’t physical discomfort he was asking about. 

“Yes,” Aziraphale said after a moment.

“If it’s not,” Crowley said, cupping Aziraphale’s face as he stepped close. “If it gets too much, say, say supernova.”

Aziraphale frowned up at him. Crowley was almost too close to see it. “Why wouldn’t I just say stop?”

“You might not want me to stop.”

“Then why would I need…?”

“Listen, angel,” Crowley said, voice low as he nosed along Aziraphale’s cheek. “You’re really sensitive right now. Look at you, you’re already leaking again. No, no, I like it, God it’s so fucking hot, don’t doubt that, but I really want to touch you a lot, that’s my plan, my plan is to touch you as much as I can, and maybe you don’t want to come thirty seconds after I start? So if you feel yourself getting close, and you’re not ready to come just yet, you’ll probably find it easier to use your word than to tell me to stop. Make sense?”

“Y-yes, I suppose,” Aziraphale said, leaning sweetly into Crowley’s touch. Crowley didn’t mention the other thought he’d had, which was that Aziraphale might very much enjoy saying  _ stop _ and Crowley… not stopping. Save that for another time.

“Say it for me?”

“Supernova.”

“Good,” Crowley said. “Great.  _ Now _ I’m going to use my mouth.”

He started gently, nibbling at Aziraphale’s earlobe, just a soft prick of teeth in yielding flesh, but Aziraphale shuddered and broke out in goose-pimples like he was feverish.

“Like that?” Crowley breathed hotly into his ear, and Aziraphale shivered again.

“I think you know I do,” he said, barely an echo of that tart tone from downstairs. “Come closer. Please.”

They were already very close, heat radiating between them like twin stars, but Crowley took the half-a-step left between them until they were chest to chest, one of Crowley’s thighs slotting hotly between Aziraphale’s.

“Oh,  _ God _ ,” Aziraphale said feelingly.

“Too much?”

“No, I…” Aziraphale chest was heaving. He took a slow breath in through his nose. “I’m okay.”

Crowley nodded, and let his fingers skate over Aziraphale’s shoulders and down his sides, lightly, lightly, and he pressed closed-mouth kisses to Aziraphale’s cheek, his jaw, his chin. And continued. Time seemed to leave them alone once more. Crowley was in a cave, a cool dark place where he needn’t do anything but focus on Aziraphale, pouring affection into every inch of his skin. He angled his thigh so that Aziraphale could rub himself against it however it felt best, teased sensitive nipples with a whisper-light brush of his thumbs, kissed down that endearingly soft belly, knelt at Aziraphale’s feet, lifted one to his thigh, pressed his thumbs into the arch. All the while Aziraphale’s lungs worked like bellows, moaning and panting his encouragement, cock leaking a string of clear beads that ran temptingly down his shaft.

“Crowley, please,” Aziraphale said eventually. “You can continue again afterwards but I need… I need…”

Crowley glanced up at Aziraphale’s face from where he was tonguing the inside of his knee. It wasn’t the word they’d agreed on _ , _ but Crowley took pity on him anyway, the wildness in his eyes. In all honesty, Aziraphale had lasted much longer than Crowley had expected him to, and Crowley himself was past ready to taste him, to suck him down and feel him come apart on his tongue. He put his hands on Aziraphale’s hips and he immediately strained mindlessly towards Crowley, making plaintive sounds. Crowley put his weight behind it and pinned his hips to the bedpost, looked up at Aziraphale and held his eyes as he gently, carefully tongued the head of his cock.

“Oh,  _ fuck!”  _ Aziraphale said. Crowley’s insides turned molten, and Aziraphale came messily half in Crowley’s open mouth, half across his cheek and chin. Crowley stared up at him, touching his wet cheek, bringing his fingers to his mouth to get more.

“My dear boy,” Aziraphale said. “You… you…”

“That was incredible,” Crowley said, awed, before leaning back in to lick Aziraphale clean. 

He spent a long time at it, gently lapping at Aziraphale’s sensitive cock, the soft give of his balls, lifting one leg over his shoulder to get to that lovely strip of skin behind them. Aziraphale’s quiet, mewling sounds of pleasure grew steadily in intensity, urging Crowley on, and Crowley lost himself to it, the giving of it, the rightness of that, Aziraphale’s moans like music filling his heart’s chambers. He licked, and he gave, and he paid attention to what made Aziraphale gasp, what made his breath hitch, what made him tug unthinkingly on his bindings, until he felt like a virtuoso in the only skill that had ever really mattered to him.

“I wish I could touch your hair,” Aziraphale said shakily as Crowley kneaded his arse, fingers sinking into generous flesh. Crowley smiled to himself and reached with his tongue, letting it elongate and become more serpentine in the cause of pleasuring Aziraphale. He spread Aziraphale’s cheeks with his hands and rubbed lightly back and forth with his tongue, and Aziraphale’s reaction was explosive.

“Crowley,  _ ah _ , oh  _ God _ , s-supernova.”

Crowley drew back at once, let his tongue re-standardise, a little shocked at the sight that greeted him. He’d been so lost he hadn’t quite noticed the state of desperation he’d worked Aziraphale into again. He was sweating, skin glowing with it in the low light, his erection red and leaking once more. Crowley licked his lips at the sight of it and Aziraphale’s cock jerked, more fluid spilling out. Hands still secured behind the bedpost, he looked a debauched mess, and Crowley  _ loved _ it.

“What do you need?” he murmured, his voice gravelly from desire.

Eyes screwed shut, Aziraphale took a couple of deep, calming breaths, before finally saying, “Can you-- like before? When you, um, leaned into me? That felt… very nice.”

Crowley rose to his feet. “Like this?” he asked, carefully plastering himself against Aziraphale from knees to shoulders, hands snaking around the angel’s waist to take hold of his glorious arse once more. Aziraphale arched into him with a helpless sound that went straight to Crowley’s heart.

“Yes. Oh, yes,” Aziraphale breathed. “You feel so wonderful, oh my darling.”

“What now, angel?” Crowley asked, lips brushing the shell of Aziraphale’s ear as he spoke. “My hands? My fingers? Want to ride my thigh until you come? I could lift you up and fuck you until you’re screaming. Tempt you into it with just my voice.” 

That got a very nice reaction, which Crowley duly noted for the future, but what Aziraphale said was, “Kiss me, darling.”

It was the third time he’d asked -- begged, really -- for that particular thing, and Crowley was horribly touched by it, the sweet simplicity of that straightforward desire.

“Aziraphale,” he moaned, falling forward into it, hooking an arm around his neck, the other still on his arse, impossibly close and terribly in love.

How he  _ loved _ Aziraphale. Sometimes painfully, sometimes sweetly, an unending pool of feeling into which he’d dived and was still searching for the bottom. How it felt to hold him now, this most intimate of moments, the dark midnight blue of his soul pierced through with glittering shafts of light. It might as well have been Crowley who’d been starved all these years, but for him it wasn’t touch -- Hell was a cramped, heaving mass of bodies -- but simply Aziraphale. Who right now was lost to pleasure at Crowley’s touch, just absolutely lost, head tipped back, throat bared, sweat-slicked and wild-haired, so overwhelmingly perfect, so  _ lovely _ .

“I love you,” Crowley breathed. Sobbed. “Aziraphale, I love you so much.”

“Oh my dear,” Aziraphale moaned, arching into him decadently. “I can  _ feel _ it.”

He had that blissed out angelic look on his face again, eyebrows knit delicately, lips softly parted, and Crowley came fiercely, helplessly, and collapsed into him, held onto him.

A moment later a shiver of divine power went through the room, and then he was being enveloped, Aziraphale’s arms warm and sure around his back.

“You lovely thing,” Aziraphale was murmuring into his temple, fingers buried in his hair, his waist. “You gorgeous creature. I couldn’t feel more lucky if God Herself came down and blessed me.”

“Ffft,” Crowley said shakily. “Don’t tempt Her. Really ruin the mood.”

Aziraphale laughed, a joyous, beautiful sound, and then said, “Crowley, I need to fuck you now.”

***

The fucking was excellent. Crowley was wrung out, completely incapable of even getting hard again, but to lie there on his side, held in Aziraphale’s arms, surrounded by Aziraphale’s warmth, the hard evidence of Aziraphale’s desire for him rocking with slow intensity inside his body, it was a hypnotic kind of pleasure that pushed out through his eyes until they burned and overflowed.

Afterwards, they lay spent, limbs tangled, sharing a pillow, and Crowley couldn’t help smiling. Just smiling and smiling and smiling. He was a mess and he undoubtedly looked like an idiot, and still he was smiling.

“...suppose there are some benefits to simply  _ wishing _ it all that way,” Aziraphale was saying. One hand was in Crowley’s hair, toying and tugging, and the occasional scrape of nails on his scalp was sending shivers down his spine. 

“How’s that?” he asked.

“Getting out of your trousers in front of a room full of demons was no picnic, let me tell you. They really are excessively tight.”

Crowley kept smiling. “Did it ever occur to you to, I don’t know, leave them on?”

“Where’s the pizzazz in that?” Aziraphale pouted.

“What?”

“Well, when you’re in a show court, it’s only right you put on a show.”

“No, I got that, it was the pizzazz bit I was…” Crowley looked into Aziraphale’s bright, happy eyes and lost his train of thought. “N-never mind.”

“But anyway,” Aziraphale continued. “My point was going to be, it’s not just the clothes.” He burrowed his fingers through Crowley’s hair before closing his fingers and tugging lightly. Crowley’s eyes fell to half-mast and he groaned. “Your hair, my dear,” Aziraphale murmured, his breath ghosting Crowley’s lips. “It’s so soft, not a styling product in sight.”

“Who’d  _ choose _ to waste time they could spend sleeping making themselves look this stylish?” Crowley murmured, drugged.

“Hmm,” Aziraphale agreed. “Frivolous, though.”

“Never been a problem for me,” Crowley pointed out. “And not a problem for you anymore, either.”

Aziraphale looked thoughtful, before his whole face lit up. “Oh, you’re right! We could go for crepes in the morning! In Brittany!”

Crowley, who knew full well the French did not consider crepes a breakfast food, but would make sure Aziraphale’s favourite little creperie in Pont-Aven was open nonetheless, couldn’t help but shuffle closer and kiss Aziraphale’s excited face.

“You show ‘em,” he said. “Live your best life, angel.”

“Will you be in it?” Aziraphale drew back to meet his eye.

Crowley swallowed, mobbed by sudden nerves. They hadn’t talked about this -- what they would look like, after. Last night, they hadn’t known there would be an after, and there’d been other things to talk about besides. And today had been… well, in all honesty, Crowley had been perfectly happy not to bring it up in the hope that things would just… carry on. As they had been. Maybe see each other a little more regularly, be a little more open about it. Maybe, sometimes, he’d hoped recklessly -- hold hands. 

That didn’t seem to be what Aziraphale was asking him, now.

“Given that I couldn’t even leave when I was trying to,” Crowley said roughly. “I’d say that’s a fair bet.”

The look Aziraphale gave him was painfully soft: it hurt him, literally, his ribs squeezing closed and his guts tangling up. “Then I think I’m already living it, Crowley.”

“That’s…”

He didn’t know what that was. He didn’t know, and he’d already said his piece, and Aziraphale skirting around the issue now was… was… because he knew Aziraphale loved him, even for the lack of hearing it out loud, but he’d never known if Aziraphale loved him  _ like that _ , and now would be a really great time to -- well, to…

“What about  _ your _ hair!” he blurted. As not-getting-your-heart-broken tactics went, it was flimsy at best. He knew that, and he still couldn’t stop himself.

Aziraphale blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Yyyyou-- you go to a barber, I know you do. Have done for years,” Crowley stuttered. “No frivolous miracles for the old angelic bonce.”

“Well, no,” Aziraphale conceded. “And my hair has never been as lavish or exciting as yours, anyway.”

“Uhh,” Crowley stumbled. “Right. Well. Your barber touches you, doesn’t he? Must do. Part of the job. You can’t tell me, every time you…” he trailed off, not sure he wanted to know where he was going or what Aziraphale’s answer might be.

“That's… that’s different,” Aziraphale said after a moment, looking into Crowley’s eyes as though checking for a head injury. “I'm not in love with him.”

“Oh,” Crowley said. “Obviously.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale breathed. “You didn’t know, did you?” A look of agitation was dawning in his eyes. “My dear, I’m so sor-- I thought you--”

Crowley shushed him in a daze, and kissed him softly, and buried his face in the warm curve of Aziraphale’s neck. He thought of a thousand sunrise smiles and those huge, expressive eyes that never could hide a thing, and a thermos flask of holy water that was both trust and a promise.

“I knew enough,” he said. Maybe he’d known it all, after all.

***

Sitting at their table at the Ritz, Aziraphale’s smile was coy and he batted his lashes at Crowley like a debutante. Crowley was utterly charmed and recklessly happy, barely remembering to even try the dishes placed in front of him as he threaded and re-threaded his fingers through Aziraphale’s. The overwhelming sensitivity to Crowley’s touch had ebbed a little over the last month, but these tender touches, the soft caress of fingers along fingers, barely-there kisses to knuckles, was still enough to make Aziraphale pink-cheeked and flustered, and shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Rather deviously, if he did say so himself, Crowley in fact had some hopes in the direction of the extremely fancy gentlemen’s room just across the lobby (it was all clean white marble and red upholstered ottomans, but it was still a bathroom, so sordid enough to be enticing to Aziraphale, who seemed to be in the process of developing a giddy delight in semi-public semi-indecency) and thinking about it was making his blood race.

“My dear, are you quite all right?” Aziraphale asked, as his main course was removed just as untouched as his starter. “I know you don’t usually eat much but this is bad even for you.”

Crowley ran his fingers back and forth along the tender skin between Aziraphale’s knuckles, smiling slightly at the way his eyes became unfocused for a moment.

“Just thinking,” he said diffidently.

“Oh dear,” Aziraphale said, sipping at his wine. “That rarely ends well.”

“I don’t know. I think this will.” He let his voice take on a bit of light temptation, a touch of demonic wile. Nothing Aziraphale wouldn’t just roll his eyes at if he weren’t in the mood, but instead the angel flushed and glanced about a little shiftily.

“We  _ are _ in a public place.”

“Didn’t stop you at the Donmar last week.”

“We were right in the back,” Aziraphale said defensively. “And we managed to make it to the Bentley before, you know.” 

Crowley just raised his eyebrows at him because, despite his words, Aziraphale had apparently toed his shoe off and was currently teasing Crowley in a very intimate way beneath the table cloth.

“Oh my dear, you are wicked,” Aziraphale said, voice low and a little rough, as if Crowley were somehow responsible for what Aziraphale was doing with his foot.

Then quickly cleared his throat and sat up a little straighter as the waiter brought the desert menu over. Crowley stared at nothing, fist clenched on top of the table, while Aziraphale made considering noises and finally ordered, all the while doing things under the table that were making Crowley wish he’d worn a skirt. Finally the waiter left and Aziraphale gave him a decidedly calculating look.

“You know that little trick of yours, where you stop time?” he asked.

“Little!” Crowley spluttered, nails digging into the tablecloth to stop his hips from jerking forward. “Have you any idea how…”

“Yes, I do,” Aziraphale said, with a very soft, very fond smile; a smile that might even be tinged with pride. “I’m curious if you know how long you can keep it up for?”

“Oh… Well, haven’t really tested it,” he said distractedly, licking his dry lips. “How long was it in the Bastille?”

“Hmm,” Aziraphale said thoughtfully.

“What?”

“Well my dear, you do seem to be in rather a state. I was simply wondering if you could stop time long enough for me to bend you over the table here and set you to rights.”

“Set me… to rights...” Crowley swallowed. “Ngk.”

Aziraphale smiled, eyes dancing. “That wasn’t  _ supernova _ ,” he said, and pushed his plate away, and dabbed at his mouth daintily with a serviette. “I think this is going to be my favourite desert yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr at [themoonmothwrites](https://themoonmothwrites.tumblr.com/)


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